Here We Go Again…. Security Firm Claims To Have Defeated Face ID Again

Shortly after the iPhone X arrived on the scene, a security firm out of Vietnam claimed to have defeated the key feature of the iPhone X which is Face ID via a specially crafted mask. I at the time threw cold water all over that. But now the same company is back claiming that they’ve got a more sophisticated Face ID hack. Apparently this hack defeats the “Require Attention for Face ID” feature which requires Face ID to detect that the user is looking at the camera in order for the iPhone X to be unlocked. Here’s the video:

According to the researchers, they’re able to pull this off via a mask that is made of stone powder with 2D infrared images of eyes taped over the mask. The latter is important because to Face ID, the mask mimics a real face with eyes. Or so the researchers say.

What do I think of this? Let me quote myself from the last time these dudes popped up:

If I owned an iPhone X and if someone manages to make a mold of my face, I’ve got bigger problem than someone accessing the contents of my phone. The same is going to be true for you. Frankly, the only scenario that matters here is the one where a hacker gets sufficient information to construct a mold like this without the user knowing. Then the hacker would have to get physical access to the phone to break into it.

In other words, unless you’re James Bond that’s probably not going to happen. The average iPhone thief couldn’t pull this off. And the only people who could are government agencies that most of us would not come in contact with anyway. Thus making this at best interesting but irrelevant to the average iPhone X user.